Monday Meme Madness - A New Year and still so much Crazy
The first is a comic more than a meme, from Answers in Genesis no less. I like the play on the original hear no evil, see no evil speak no evil. Creation or creator has replaced that, and that is funny - they are the new evil! Those monkeys certainly have gleefully evil looks on their faces.
Despite not being able to hear or see, the young boy seems to be doing just fine on that sidewalk, apparently moving in a straight line!
So, the obvious point of the cartoon is how poor little children are not being allowed to appeal to "creation" and are saddled with the evolution textbook in their public school education backpack.
I think anyone who has considered this for a few minutes will spot the problem with the comic: "creation" is loaded language. Sure, poetically, writers and orators have often referred to our world as "creation," but poetry is one thing. To define everything as creation is begging the question, making an assumption about how it came to be. Yes, something "created" needs a creator to create it. How do we know our world is a creation at all? We don't. I love poetry, but you cannot take a turn of phrase that is symbolic or allegorical or literary and assume because someone use that term that there is a scientific basis to it. But fundies often like to quote Psalms as arguments for science. It's poetry people! Those are songs! In any case, it is highly unscientific to just say "Hey, look, creation! There must be a creator! Voilà! Argument done!"
"Let there be truth" is a highly inappropriate name for this comic.
And, can I say that it is funny that monkeys are the ones denying evolution! I can hear the cartoonist now: "If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" Check mate, atheists!
Moving on to meme #2: "He finds creation, global flood, resurrection to be absurd yet believes everything came from nothing."
I know Richard Dawkins is a frequent target for the fundies. I think they see him as a "prophet" of atheism. I like hearing him talk, but I've actually never read any of his books. Shame on me, right?
Thing is, I have had other things to read, so I haven't read much "atheist literature." Since there is no dogma, beliefs, etc. in atheism, this is neither here nor there. Maybe one day I'll get to something. I say that mainly because I notice such a focus on specific figures on the part of specific creationist fundies. Probably it is because these people are very successful at communicating their message and very effective at making points. They become especially tempting to demonize and discredit, as if doing so will cause a whole house of cards to come down. There may be projection involved because for many Christians, that is literally the case with their religion: no Garden of Eden and Fall? No need for Christ's sacrifice! No crucifixion of Jesus with resurrection? No eternal salvation that their faith is based on!
The meme is a pretty stupid one, and I find this design particularly annoying. Put the demonized figure's head in the center with lines radiating out and a color and paint them as being ridiculous. It is pretty low meming.
And there isn't much to say about the text: yes, creation, global flood and resurrection are absurd on any number of levels, but especially because there is NO EVIDENCE for any of it. And, can we just say for the bazillionth time that scientists don't claim everything came from nothing?! Dawkins is of course a biologist, but I imagine he accepts the big bang theory, which is not a creation ex nihilo event but an expansion of a singularity.
Meme #3: Simple variations in species over here bad explanations over there and they call evolution "science"?
I don't really know what this meme is on about. I will file this under "the meme-maker doesn't understand evolution or science."
Happy 2018!
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